fit and finish are incomparable, warm sound, good bass for its size, there is no better speaker at this range

not everyone like the warm sound

I bought these speakers during their 2003 Christmas sale at $200 plus $40 shipping for the pair. You may see other reviews that call other speakers giant killers but these are the real deal. Why? Its on the construction and materials. Yes, wood. Real honest to god wood, not plastic, no vinyl over MDF but true rosewood. At the normal price of $400/pair, you cannot find real wood made-speakers anywhere. These speakers are plain beautiful. The top and bottom are a piano-black high gloss finish while the sides are rounded true rosewood. Internally, its heavily braced and uses higher end interconnects internally. Even my $900/pair Paradigm Monitor 9's use fairly mundune copper lines. The drivers are a silver-white aluminum 1" tweeter and matching 5.25" woofer with rear porting. Don't let the small woofer fool you, these guys can reach below the 40hz mark! From a sonic standpoint, these are amazing speakers. They tend to have a very warm, laid back characteristic so if you like the brighter trebles and forward sounds of most North American brands, you may find the sound "boxy" or "muffled." The benefit though is you can turn up these speakers to very high levels and still not cringe from the harshness. Don't let that warm feel fool you though, they are *very* revealing speakers. The difference between the highs of my Monitor 9s and these is that the 'igms tend to emphasis subtleties more while the Rockets let subtle sounds stay subtle. Both sound great, but I actual prefer the sound of the highs and midrange of the Rockets. Of course bass wise, the huge 'igms are much better. Now a better comparison would be Paradigm's Mini-Monitors that go for roughly $400 a pair. Its no contest. The Mini-Monitors are great speakers but the RS150s have them in almost every category. Even compared to the higher up Studio 20s which go for about $800 a pair, these speakers fare well. Well the Studio 20s go louder, the RS150s have a tighter midrange and a smoother upper range. There you have it. A true honest to go true giant-killer in the form on an Internet sold direct-only company. Companies like Rocket, Axiom, Ascend, Swan are the next wave of audiophile gear bringing you great products at huge discounts by eliminating the middleman. And out of all these factory-direct speaker makers, Rockets fly up to the top of the heap.

Similar Products Used:

Paradigm Monitor 7, 9.. auditioned Studio 20, Mini-Monitor, Athena AS-B1, Klipsch, JBL, Mackie 624 near field monitors